ERA16LA326 · Hughes 269B
Hughes 269B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during autorotation
From Ozark-Blackwell Field (71J) to Ozark-Blackwell Field (71J)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA326
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Hughes 269B
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 269
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N269BS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ozark-Blackwell Field (71J), Ozark, ALTo Ozark-Blackwell Field (71J), Ozark, AL
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1965)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Autorotation
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of engine power (total)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor stated that the helicopter was in cruise flight at 75 mph and 800 ft mean sea level when he announced "simulated engine failure" and reduced the throttle and collective. The student pilot responded to the simulated emergency by establishing an autorotation and cross-checking the instruments, which were all "normal" or "in the green." During recovery of the maneuver at 100 ft above ground level, the instructor noted the engine rpm was "zero," announced an actual engine failure, joined the student pilot on the flight controls, and completed the autorotation to the ground. At touchdown, the helicopter bounced on the right front skid and rolled onto its right side. The helicopter was recovered to the operator's facility, where an engine start was attempted on the airframe using the helicopter's battery and starter. The engine started immediately and ran smoothly without interruption until manually shut down.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined following a successful postaccident engine run on the accident helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA326
- Event ID
- 20160926X10926
- Case number
- ERA16LA326
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 313ac1e6124b0ff00cffd15010fda298150842c19fe364d68f9bc1059703649d; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:18:37.078Z.